


a man is what he hides

by Venetia5



Series: a dangerous line of work [1]
Category: Project Blue Book (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Cold War, Deception, F/F, F/M, M/M, Manipulation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venetia5/pseuds/Venetia5
Summary: Michael knew for a fact that Mr Brown of 2182 Northumberland Avenue in Cincinnati, a fat, balding alcoholic with gout in his right foot and a violent temper, wasn’t a Russian spy, and nor was Mrs Campbell of 3167 Blanche Avenue, Williamstown, even if she did like the ballet. He knew this without a doubt.He should, after all, since he was one.-In Cold War era America, with the threat of nuclear war with Russia putting everyone on edge, Captain Michael Quinn has been assigned to Project Blue Book, an operation intended to investigate and dismiss claims of flying saucers and put the public at ease during such uncertain times. And it's the perfect cover for a man who is actually a sleeper agent, tasked with infiltrating the US Air Force and feeding information back to the Soviet Union.That is, until his superiors decide he needs a partner, who comes in the form of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an unassuming astrophysics professor, who has been assigned to Project Blue Book to assist Quinn in his investigations, a decision which changes everything for both men. Quinn must do his duty while staying hidden, while Hynek is drawn into a web of espionage, intrigue and inexplicable events.





	a man is what he hides

**Author's Note:**

> This will be my first story for this particular fandom, and it's an idea that's been rolling around my brain since I watched episode two of this show. I have to say that what attracted me to this was the fact that it's a history channel show, and that I love anything that involves aliens, sci-fi and history (except for Ancient Aliens). What made me stick around, along with the interesting premise and engrossing episodes, were the characters, and the relationships between all of the characters (and the rampant homoeroticism in that first episode with all the zipping of flight suits and dresses might have been a factor too, I'll admit).  
> When I found out that (spoilers for ep 2) Susie was a Russian spy, I found it intriguing, and by the end of the series, I'd begun to wonder "what if Quinn turned out to be a Russian agent too?", and thus this monstrosity of an idea was born.
> 
> Fair warning, there will be graphic violence and torture scenes in this story, as I've mentioned in the tags, so please heed the warnings. The rating is also likely to change. 
> 
> Quinn will also be much darker in this version of the story, as I'm a firm believer that being an undercover operative _and_ going to war and torturing people will probably mean you lose yourself to the darkness a bit. I also remember reading that the best undercover operatives have separate, distinct personalities to suit their identities which they are able to slip in and out of, so the personality we see in the show, is simply the personality of his cover identity here, and the slightly darker version of Quinn is his true self (at least, that's my excuse).

Michael Quinn had been standing on the corner of Indianola and East 12th Avenue for over an hour when his fingers finally went numb. He’d watched as the sun disappeared behind the tall buildings that surrounded him, and as the lights flickered on behind windows to combat the oncoming gloom. He’d remained in his position in front of the window of an empty bookstore even as it had fallen dark and the temperature had dropped well below what he would consider comfortable.

After the first forty minutes of standing on that dismal street corner, he’d begun to eye the diner over the road, “Sloppy Joe’s”, the sign read, and he could see a few of the customers inside: one boy and girl, clearly on a date, each with a milkshake and a bowl of fries; a man in overalls and a flat cap messily chowing down on his burger; and an older man with greying hair and glasses reading the newspaper while his pie went untouched. _A waste,_ Michael had thought to himself at the time. Now, he wished he’d joined the man as a pang of hunger went through him. He’d grown soft after he’d returned from the war, had become used to eating three meals a day, food that didn’t consist of the meagre rations he’d been able to scrounge up in Europe.

Earlier that morning, Michael had received an encoded message via the separate phone line informing him of the meeting that night in Columbus, a long drive from Dayton, and instructing him to bring the package he’d promised to deliver. He was used to the short notice that most of these covert meetings entailed and, by definition, necessitated. What he wasn’t used to, however, was his contact being late to said meeting, nor was he used to freezing his ass off on the corner of a street, out in the open, where anyone could see him.

He’d known that the meeting was a bad idea when they’d failed to give him a back-up meeting place and time, and when they’d decided on a street corner for the meeting place. He wasn’t quite sure if his superiors actually wanted him caught or not, but Michael had been in the game too long to be overly phased by this or find it difficult to work around.

He’d thought about aborting when he’d first realised that his contact was ten minutes late to the meet, given how much of a danger he was exposing himself to by lurking on the corner street where he could attract attention and suspicion. So far, he’d avoided that by strategically moving position every once in a while, ducking down an alleyway every now and then before reappearing, and trying to keep mostly out of sight from anybody who might happen to walk past, though it tended only to be the occasional drunk stumbling home from the bar up the road, and students and academic staff who had been working late at the university only a few blocks away.

Michael eyed the diner again, and noticed that the older man had left while he’d been scanning the street for any sign of his contact. It was beginning to get ridiculous. And dangerous. Michael knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand on the corner much longer before someone noticed him and called the cops, and he couldn’t afford for that to happen. He checked his watch once again. 2227. His contact was almost two hours late, and Michael could no longer feel his extremities.

It was only as he began to make his way down the unlit street that he noticed a car pull up in front of the bookshop, and a man, young, dressed in black, exit the car and look around for a few moments before he spotted Michael.

Michael sighed when he saw the man, _boy_ really, whom he supposed was his contact. Youth would never make up for experience, as Michael’s commanding officer had drilled into him over and over again, and, for once, Michael agreed with the old bastard. The boy had to be a new recruit, and Michael felt a flash of anger. His superiors had sent this green, untrained recruit to be his contact, they were entrusting sensitive information to this _kid._ And he was still freezing.

Michael walked hurriedly back to the spot where he’d been stood for the last two hours, and nodded at the boy who now stood in front of the window, his brown hair tousled slightly beneath the broad-brimmed hat which Michael thought looked ridiculous on him, and the long grey overcoat he was wrapped was clearly too big for him, practically hanging off his shoulders. The boy nodded back at him, and glanced around nervously, before leaning in towards Michael.

“They say there’ll be snow on the mountaintops tomorrow,” the boy whispered, and Michael barely refrained from snorting. He didn’t think the kid would last five minutes in the service, not really. He suspected that the only reason he’d even managed to get this _courier_ job was because he was the nephew or son of someone important, not because he had a real talent or a proclivity for any form of clandestine operation.

“And since when have the weathermen been right about the forecast,” Michael dutifully replied, wishing to God that the kid would stop twitching like a hyper ferret long enough to deliver the message and take possession of the file Michael had tucked into his leather jacket, a clothing choice he’d regretted once the chill of the night air had begun to set in.

“Captain Quinn?” the kid said, and Michael could detect the faint trace of a stutter within his voice. _Definitely a product of nepotism_ , he thought to himself. “I believe you have a file for me.” _Too eager by half_ , he thought derisively. Eagerness is their line of work would get them killed, and Michael suspected that if the kid was allowed to participate in covert ops for much longer, his death would be sooner rather than later.

“And I believe you have a message for me,” he countered, not yet willing to hand over the file of sensitive information, information that he’d spent _months_ retrieving, analysing and compiling. This file was his ticket to a better posting, to something more _important_ , not some dead-end job in middle of a state where people believed that the height of haute-cuisine was fried chicken in a bun. Michael was already sick of this state, and he’d only been there for six months. While his colleagues at the base and his fellow pilots had attributed it to him coming from Michigan, Michael knew that it was in fact because he hated Ohio as a state. He’d wanted New York, or DC, or anywhere other than the back of beyond in a state that seemed to worship corn.

“Y-yes,” the boy stuttered, and Michael barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “They need you to infiltrate and extract information from a base near Gurley, Alabama. They’ve had reports from an operative stationed there that there are interesting things going on.” The boy looked pleased by his report, but Michael simply felt frustrated. Just as his last two messages from contacts, this one was infuriatingly vague, once again. There was no mention of what “interesting things” were going on, nor what sort of information they wanted him to extract. Michael had had six months of vague messages and even vaguer missions, and it was beginning to grate on his nerves.

“Was there anything else?” He ground out through gritted teeth, trying to resist the urge to strangle the kid in front of him when he had the gall to look confused. Michael supposed that he didn’t really know better, wouldn’t know just how difficult covert operations such as this really were, nor would he understand Michael’s frustration. “Never mind, kid. Here. Take this. Look after it. Make sure it gets to the right people.”

Michael reluctantly handed over the thick manila file that was almost overflowing with sheets of paper, and only secured by a piece of string wrapped horizontally and vertically to prevent the papers from scattering all over the pavement. Six months of painstaking, dangerous work, all bundled into one folder, and handed off to a kid who looked like he was barely out of school. Michael didn’t like it, but then again, there wasn’t really much he could do about it.

If he’d been the paranoid kind, Michael might have wondered if his superiors had stuck him in this dead-end job with increasingly moronic contacts just to have him caught, but Michael wasn’t paranoid. All covert operatives were cautious, caution was their friend, but paranoia was your enemy, paranoia would get you killed. It had been drilled into him, and so he didn’t believe that his superiors were trying to get him caught. After all, he knew too much, was far too valuable an asset for them to allow him to be caught and risk him spilling every single secret he knew.

He watched as the kid clumsily tucked the manila folder into his coat, a wise choice for such a cold night, nodded in the kid’s direction, and then set off, walking straight past him, not bothering to pause or look round when he heard the sound of the car door opening and closing, nor when the car pulled away from the curb. His job for tonight was done. He could go home, maybe squeeze in five hours of sleep if he was lucky, before he’d have to wake up for yet another day of pointless paperwork and investigations, and fielding phone calls from the nut-jobs who seemed to permeate American society and apparently had nothing better to do than bother the authorities with crank calls and their own insane beliefs.

Really, anyone who believed in aliens and ships from outer space needed their heads examining.

It was almost as bad as the number of calls from people who believed their next-door neighbour was a Russian spy because they saw them eating something that looked like caviar, or heard them “speaking in some foreign language”.

Michael knew for a fact that Mr Brown of 2182 Northumberland Avenue in Cincinnati, a fat, balding alcoholic with gout in his right foot and a violent temper, wasn’t a Russian spy, and nor was Mrs Campbell of 3167 Blanche Avenue, Williamstown, even if she did like the ballet. He knew this without a doubt.

He should, after all, since he was one.

 

* * *

 

Across town, Dr Allen Hynek was busy cursing the university board as he tried to write his proposal for funding for his new satellite at the desk in his office, the lamp on the desk casting such a dim glow that Allen could barely see the words he’d already typed on the page, though there weren’t very many of them to see to begin with. He didn’t really understand _why_ the board was forcing him to put together this proposal, he’d thought they’d be delighted at the possibility of expanding their scientific knowledge. They claimed to be academics, but sometimes Allen thought they were merely pencil-pushers and administrators, out to quash any form of scientific inquiry or comprehension of the universe that they lived in beyond what one could see.

He glanced up at the open door to the office when he heard a light knock against the frame, and saw Mimi standing there in her robe, tied snugly round her slim waist. She looked tired, and a small frown marred her beautiful features. Allen knew that he was the cause of that frown, knew that he’d been the cause of many similar frowns and disappointed expressions recently, with all the time he’d been spending working on his various projects, and he knew that it hadn’t always been like that.

He could remember when he’d first met her all those years ago, just after the war had begun, but before America had become involved. He’d attended a lecture by a pre-eminent scientist on astrophysics at Ohio University, and had been on his way home when he’d met her at the bus stop. She’d forgotten her umbrella and had it had begun to pour down, as it was wont to do in Ohio, and Allen had offered her both his coat and umbrella when he’d seen her standing there, practically shivering and soaked to the skin. He hadn’t thought about what would happen later, when he’d find himself walking back to the digs he was staying in at the time sans coat and umbrella with rain still pouring down from the heavens, but he hadn’t much cared either. He’d thought, even soaked through, that she’d been a vision, beauty personified.

They’d married shortly before America had become embroiled in the war, before Allen had been called away to do work for the Army and the Air Force, and he’d wondered how she’d felt about it, had wondered if their relationship would survive the long hours and the days of separation so soon after they’d been married. But their relationship had come through the war unscathed, more than some of their friends could say, and he promised her after that that he wouldn’t leave her again, that he would never drift away from her. He’d worried, recently, that he’d been doing it again, inadvertently, but Mimi, his beautiful, loving Mimi, had reassured him that she was simply worried about, that she’d told him she could use the bags beneath his eyes to do the shopping. He didn’t think he’d ever loved someone so much in his life.

“Are you coming to bed soon Allen?” She sounded so tired, and Allen immediately felt guilty. He’d become so wrapped in his work again that he hadn’t even noticed what time it was, and when he glanced at his clock, the hands pointing to 10:30, he cursed himself. He began to shuffle the papers on his desk into something resembling a neat pile, failing to notice Joel’s comic book sliding into the pile, and shut off the lamp on the desk.

He walked over to where Mimi was still leaning against the door frame, wrapped a hand around her waist, and kissed her softly, gently, an apology for yet another late night. “I’m sorry, Mimi. I didn’t notice the time, I got wrapped up in it all. The board of directors want my proposal tomorrow at the university and I’m nowhere near done, and really, the whole thing is completely ridiculous –”

Mimi cut off his rambling ranting with a gentle kiss of her own, before tugging on his tie. “Just come to bed, Allen,” she pleaded, and he did as she asked, following her back to their bedroom as quietly as possible because he knew that Joel would be asleep by now, unlike his parents.

He’d simply have to ad lib his proposal tomorrow and hope that the board went for it.

 

* * *

 

Outside the Hynek property, sitting in a car that seemed to be intrinsically part of American identity, some long, black monstrosity that felt like it ought to stick out like a sore thumb, despite being the same as every other car on the street, Susie Miller breathed a sigh of relief as the light in Dr Hynek’s study finally shut off. Susie had been sat outside the property since night had fallen, quietly rolling up just short of the driveway, out of sight of both the Hynek house and obscured from view from the other houses on the street. She knew just how nosy residents of the American suburbs could be.

Of course, Susie Miller wasn’t her real name, though she supposed it wasn’t a bad name. It had been the best she’d been able to come up with when she’d first been stationed in this godforsaken country. She’d had to kill someone for the name, cover the murder up, and then try to assume the identity she’d stolen, to fit into the role, the life, of _Susie Miller_. It had been challenging to begin with, but slowly, using all of her training, she’d done it. She had become Susie Miller, an ordinary American citizen, nothing strange or amiss about her, and it had been easy in some ways, so easy that it made her want to laugh.

She placed the camera she’d been using only moments before on the empty seat beside her, on top of the manila folder she’d been studying so assiduously for the last two weeks. It was a fairly slim folder, and, having trailed the good doctor for the past week, she could see why. He had done nothing of interest or note for the past few days, mainly spending his time flitting between the university where he taught, the local observatory, and his home, and while there wasn’t exactly a set routine with all the erratic hours he spent working on his new project or looking at the stars, he didn’t really seem to make any deviations as far as location went. It was very easy to predict where Hynek would be any given point during the day.

It was the same story with the wife, though Susie felt sorry for her, rather than bored as she did with the husband. Her life seemed to revolve around her husband and son, rarely doing anything more exciting than going grocery shopping and perhaps having to entertain one of those dim-witted women she called “friends”, whose personalities were so vacuous and vapid that Susie thought it was a wonder Mimi Hynek hadn’t gone around the twist. She knew that Mimi had had an important job during the war, something to do with codes and radio signals, if the information she’d received was correct. And now here she was, fetching in the washing and scheduling playdates for her son. Susie supposed that there was a possibility Mimi was happy and content with this life, with a husband whom she rarely saw and nothing interesting happening in her life anymore, but she doubted it.

Susie had already made the suggestion to her superiors that she infiltrate the Hynek household through Mimi, though at the time they’d told her to hold off and gather more intel first, perhaps wait until the good doctor was out of town for a couple of days, though looking at Hynek’s schedule, it didn’t seem like he would be going anywhere anytime soon.

She let out a yawn as she started the car, the tiredness already beginning to creep in. She doubted she’d be in any state to transcribe the notes she’d made on her surveillance of Hynek, nor to transcribe the auditory surveillance from the bug she’d managed to plant outside the house on the porch, though she had yet to manage to place bugs inside the house or the phone, which frustrated her to no end. Normally, she would have managed to wrap up the initial surveillance by now and would have begun to get ready for her initial contact, but everything to do with the Hynek family was frustratingly slow.

She put the car into gear and rolled away from the curb, her headlights still turned off so that didn’t attract any unwanted attention – the street lights were bright enough to drive by until she reached the end of the street. She glanced at the dainty watch adorning her wrist, red leather strap and silver hands, beautiful but also unnecessarily ostentatious, like most things seemed to be in America – the shoes, the clothes, the cars. While she could appreciate how good a slim fitting dress looked on a woman, she also knew that it was far from practical, and that was what she liked – practicality over pretty, if one had to choose.

22:35. She’d be able to get a few hours of sleep before the professor would wake up early for his meeting with the board at the university. Despite only having begun to follow him a week ago, she already knew how irregular his sleep schedule was, and she knew that with something so important, Hynek would likely be awake hours earlier than he needed to be. She wanted to curse him at times, given that her own sleep schedule now had to reflect his, late nights and early rising included. She didn’t know how that brain of his managed to function on such little sleep, though she supposed that a man who was a genius must still be smarter than average even when sleep deprived.

Susie could only hope that Hynek didn’t have any surprises planned for tomorrow. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope with much more than standard surveillance given how sleep deprived she was herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this, and I hope you found it enjoyable, and I hope that the characters weren't too OOC, mainly Quinn. Also, please let me know if there are any inaccuracies, as I don't have a proofreader for this, nor am I an expert on the cold war, spies, sleeper agents, or astrophysics. I am merely a bored ancient history student procrastinating from their countless essays.
> 
> Please leave con-crit in the comments if you wish too, and kudos is love. Thank you for reading :)


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